Piano players are at a disadvantage when it comes to being able to carry their instrument around. While you cannot actually make music with this particular garment, this scarf is a full scale grand piano keyboard. Both black and white keys are the exact size of the real thing. I made this scarf as a gift to my piano teacher in appreciation for her skill and dedication.

The first challenge was to find both white and black yarn such that, when knit with the same needles, would measure the exact width of the piano keys. I ended up with yarn of sllightly different gauges. While it certainly would have been easier to knit along the short edge, that would have resulted in a strange “grain” to the fabric. Hence, all 88 keys needed to be knit at once.

The white keys where knit from a single yarn, separated with a single purl stitch. Each black key was added using an intarsia technique by using a single, 1-2 meter long yarn piece. Having all those extra yarn pieces hanging on the back was quite challenging but the results were worth it.

All the black keys were knit in such a way that they raised off the white keys, just like in a real keyboard. Don’t forget the single line of red felt on every grand piano befor transitioning to a solid color. Once I reached the desired width, I added a single purl row followed by a sufficient number of stockinett rows to match the width. The edges were then sewn together to hide the underside of the keyboard.

Overall, this was a very technical project because the size and shape of each key had to be exact. It was also quite fun because you can lay it out on a table and finger the keys to whatever music piece you are currently practicing.